Singapore Management University
Singapore Management University (SMU) is the third autonomous university in Singapore. The university provides broad-based business programmes modelled after the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. SMU was established on 29 July 2000 and is located in the Downtown area of Singapore. It has a city campus with a total enrolment of about 10,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and comprises six schools offering undergraduate, graduate and PhD programmes in business administration, business analytics, financial services, accountancy, economics, information systems management, law and the social sciences. The university has over 30 research institutes and centres of excellence, and customised corporate training and lifelong learning for individuals are available through the university's professional and executive development programmes. SMU is accredited by the AACSB International, EQUIS, and AMBA. History In 1997, the Singaporean government began considering setting up a third university in Singapore. Ho Kwon Ping, a Singaporean business entrepreneur, was appointed to chair the task-force which determined that the new institution would follow the American university system featuring a more flexible broad-based education. Following a review of undergraduate business schools to serve as a model for SMU, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania emerged as the best candidate. The Wharton-SMU agreement was signed in February 1999 followed in June by the Wharton-SMU Research Center collaboration. In July 1999, Janice Bellace, then Deputy Dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, commenced a two-year term as SMU's first president alongside founding provost, Tan Chin Tiong. In 2000, SMU made its first home at the former Raffles College (now the National University of Singapore's Bukit Timah campus) on Evans Road near Hwa Chong Institution. The campus, first opened in 1929, had already been home to several institutions before SMU. In 2001, SMU upgraded and occupied the main campus facilities, balancing the need to refit and refurbish it with facilities while preserving the heritage of colonial architecture. From 2001 to 2004, Ronald Frank served as SMU's second president and was succeeded by Howard Hunter. Between 2000 and 2005, SMU saw the formation of four schools, its library and three centres of excellence as well as the graduation of the first batch of its students. After that, SMU moved from its Bukit Timah campus to its current campus in the Bugis-Bras Basah district. Since then, SMU has expanded, with the establishment of its School of Law in 2007 and the restructuring of its School of Economics and Social Sciences into two separate schools: the School of Economics and the School of Social Sciences In 2010, Yong Pung How and Arnoud De Meyer took over the positions of SMU Chancellor and President from Richard Hu and Howard Hunter respectively. In 2015, J. Y. Pillay replaced Yong as SMU's Chancellor while Lily Kong succeeded De Meyer as SMU's President in January 2019. Lim Chee Onn succeeded J. Y. Pillay as Chancellor in August 2019. Faculty SMU has a 350-member faculty that includes industry experts and trainers. Academics SMU follows a course credit system similar to that used in most American universities. Each individual course within the university is assigned a certain credit weightage and students are usually required to take a specified number of units to fulfil requirements for graduation. Courses are typically conducted as small group seminars of under 50 students so as to allow for a high degree of interactive discourse between students and instructors. Admissions SMU admits students from a list of pre-university or high school qualifications that includes the Singapore-Cambridge GCE Advanced Level, diplomas from the five polytechnics or two arts institutions and International Baccalaureate diploma once a year. For entry to graduate or master programmes, SMU requires GMAT and TOEFL or IELTS for most of the majors.